Christmas came early for the ex-airline employees
Qantas has been ordered to compensate hundreds of former ground-handling workers in the latest chapter of a five-year legal battle over the airline’s unlawful outsourcing of jobs.
Justice Michael Lee directed that each of the affected former employees receive an interim payment of $3,333 for non‑economic loss, as delays in distributing a much larger compensation pool continued to frustrate workers.
The order comes more than a year after Qantas paid $120 million into a compensation fund administered by law firm Maurice Blackburn, following court findings that the outsourcing of 1,820 ground-handling roles in late 2020 was unlawful.
In court, Lee acknowledged he had received written complaints from former staff about how long it was taking for compensation to reach them. He said the workers’ concerns deserved to be brought to the court’s attention.
He said he understood the frustration over the time taken to get money “into people’s hands” but noted that the administrators could move only as quickly as the information supplied by recipients allowed.
To ensure that at least some money would arrive before the Christmas period – a time of heightened financial pressure for many households – Lee ordered the interim lump-sum payment to all eligible sacked workers.
Of the 1,820 employees whose roles were unlawfully outsourced, the court heard that 1,793 have registered for compensation.
The...
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